But the only thing Murphy hated more than exerting himself was leaving a question unanswered. Like why a policeman asking the wrong questions about an attempted murder nobody else had questioned had now been murdered himself. And why the only person who had picked up on it was an out-of-town nurse.

"You really went to death investigator's camp?"

She dropped her chin back into her hands. "I am a certified forensic nurse, trained in the investigation and prevention of all manner of violence against persons. Right now, that seems to translate into nothing more than a license to lose sleep, friends, and gainful employ."

"Handy if you need to investigate a murder, though."

"Bite your tongue."

"If you were going to investigate a murder, what would you do?"

She finished the cigarette and flipped it into the wreckage of the house with practiced fingers. "Annoy the coroner some more. Talk to some friends in arson, then check back with the police and fire puppies here. Make a general nuisance of myself."

"Fire puppies?"

This time her smile was a little easier. "Technical term. Arson squads with more energy than experience who end up getting wagged by the ass."

"Uh-huh." Murphy looked at her a minute. An adrenaline junkie. A young, hungry adrenaline junkie with an unbusted cherry of a sense of honor and blue eyes the size of dinner plates. She could damn well be more exhausting than Sherilee, given the chance.

But then, Sherilee didn't have any old ghosts in her smile. Timmie Leary did. Old ghosts and a refreshingly honest hint of rage. And Murphy could only hope that that combination would make all the difference.

"I'll tell you what," he finally offered, already regretting the impulse. "What if we come at it from different sides? You check into the fire, and I'll look into the big picture."

"The big picture."

"What an attempted shooting might have had to do with a mysterious phone call might have to do with Memorial Med Center."

"Ah."

"If you can get me Victor Adkins's social security number, I can also get you background information. You also might want to just listen around the hospital for a clue as to why we got contacted and why somebody tried to shoot up a fund-raiser."

She nodded absently. "Any ideas?"

"Alex Raymond," he said without hesitation.

She turned on him then, genuinely stunned. "Alex? Good God, why?"

Murphy considered another cigarette and decided against it. "Because he's perfect. Perfect people make me itch."

She laughed again, and it sounded a little lighter. "I hate to ruin your day, but Alex probably is perfect. I haven't even seen him get into a fight since he was twelve."

"He spent a few years away from home."

"So did Christ. Didn't make him a gang-banger. You want a motive for the shooting, my money's on cost-cutting and HMOs. One opinion I got was that certain white citizens of Puckett objected to a certain black administrator firing friends."

She made Murphy want to laugh again. They were sitting behind a burned-out house planning to make their lives unnecessarily complicated, and she was making him look forward to it. Damn her.

"All right, then," he conceded. "The hospital death rate. If you'll casually look into the specifics, I'll look into Price University. Good enough?"

She straightened and raked both hands through her hair, which just made it stand up. Then she took another considered look at the house. "The first thing I have to do," she said, "is challenge the accepted perception of what is or is not arson."

At the house just east of Victor's a curtain lifted in what was probably the kitchen, and then fell back into place again. Which meant that if the neighbor was active as well as nosy, Murphy and his accomplice had about five more minutes of quiet before a cruiser showed up to evict them from their perch.

"There is one more thing," Murphy said. "How do you think Billy Mayfield's involved?"

Timmie's face immediately clouded over. "Oh, God. Billy."

"You do think he was murdered, don't you?"

No answer. No eye contact.

"He have something to do with the hospital?"

For the first time since Murphy had spotted her, Timmie Leary-Parker turned to take a considered look at him. Murphy noticed how sunken her eyes had gotten. How she seemed to be a little puffy and discolored in places. She also had a splint on her little finger. She'd been a lot busier this week than he had, that was for sure.

"You know," she said, oddly enough brightening. "I didn't even think of that. I don't have a clue what he did. But it would make sense. You know, if he knew Victor, which he probably did. Their wives worked together. Maybe he worked there at some time. Maybe he was a patient."

"He was. You killed him."

"I didn't kill him," she retorted, stiff with outrage. "Somebody else did."

"You gonna tell me about it?"

After his last meeting with her, Murphy expected an argument. What he got was a chagrined smile.

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"And then you can get his social security number, too."

She told him about it. Murphy probably could have easily lived the rest of his life without learning about the interesting connection between Billy Mayfield and the Puckett County coroner. He probably would have lived a happier, albeit more boring, life if he hadn't heard the word "poison."

But once she said it, she couldn't take it back. And Murphy knew that if nothing else, he at least had to salve his curiosity. And so, with that in mind, he sent Timmie Leary-Parker back out into the world of hospitals to check on the results of Victor Adkins's autopsy, and he headed for the phone.

* * *

"Price University?" Pete Mitchell asked the next day over lunch. "You think Price University is doing something nefarious?"

Murphy took a second to sample his chili before answering. God, it had been a hundred years since he'd eaten at Crown Candy. A lifetime ago when he'd worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He'd been fired from that job, too, of course. Not for being a drunk or a drug addict. Nobody much cared as long as he got his stories in. Cops had driven him home from cop bars and crime scenes, and editors had shrugged off complaints. Like a star athlete with a penchant for punching girlfriends, Murphy had been immune as long as he'd produced. And he'd produced one of his Pulitzers for the paper. It wasn't until he'd been caught with his pants down by a TV crew that they'd finally shown him the door. That had been about eight years ago.

Pete Mitchell had worked under him then, the junior woodchuck assigned to keep him out of major trouble. Now balding and paunched and content, Pete edited the business section. And instead of inviting Murphy to Missouri Bar and Grill, where the print news guys really hung out, he'd suggested Crown Candy, one of the few standing buildings in the wasteland that had become north St. Louis, where TV camera trucks vied with police cruisers for parking, and the town's politics were discussed over chili and ice cream instead of scotch and cigar smoke.

So Murphy sucked down four-alarm beans under a high stamped-tin roof and ticked off the aging, balding, uniformed faces he still recognized around the room, all the while fighting that old feeling of a visit from Christmas past.

"There's just some action going on out in Puckett, and Price seems to be involved," Murphy finally hedged.